The Candidate
For All Nails #37: The Candidate by Noel Maurer ---- :Guadalajara City, Guadalajara, USM :19 September 1971 The Candidate was a happy man, until he saw the vasty grey space that was Liberación Plaza. FN1 It reminded him the old joke about the way to Chapultepec Castle. FN2 The rally was supposed to kick off the campaign in Guadalajara State, right downtown in Liberación Plaza. Now, he’d been to the state plenty of times. But mostly to the southern sections, Valladolid and the towns around it, the more Mexicano part of the state. FN3 Now he was gonna hit the big city, and go from there out into the smaller cities of the Bajío, where everyone was Anglo or Hispano or pretended to be. FN4 The candidate didn’t like Guadalajara State much -- pinche hypocrites on the race issue, better Yucatán or Jefferson where the blancos didn't pretend so much that they didn't care what shade your skin was -- but the Plan meant kissing babies all over the country, including little Hispano ones in the Bajío. FN5 Anyway, the Candidate liked kissing babies, and if bringing change meant kissing up to their parents, well, he could do that. The Guadalajara jaunt was going to be a pain, since he was going to have to fly back to Mexico City several times for meetings with Important Personages, but that’s why God created airmobiles. It was less than an hour from anywhere in Guadalajara to Mexico City anyway, and the state was literally riddled with airfields. FN6 The start of the Guadalajara whistlestop would be downtown in the capital city, near the Mexicano slums. Getting a crowd should be easy. The media was supposed to be there: vita, radio, print, the whole googly. The Guadalajara City press was, of course, utterly incorruptible. They would show up in their own personal luxury lokes, bought on their own salaries, of course, and equipped with stickers to allow them to park anywhere, which were, obviously, entirely unrelated to any relationship with Governor Rickover, Secretary Mercator, or the Progressive Party. The Candidate arrived in a carreta from the airport with only a driver and one his most trusted aides. FN7 And what happened? Nothing. That was the problem. Nothing and nobody. Liberación Plaza was entirely deserted, as if somebody had worked at making sure the Plaza stayed empty. FN8 There was a band in the plaza, playing that godawful mariachi music, some guy yodeling something in Spanish. (It later turned out that the bandleader was the governor's brother, and the campaign had paid $135,000 for the privilege.) Maybe forty spectators milled around -- at a cost of three thousand dólares per head, just to get them there -- most of them holding posters and bumper stickers and wearing the silly straw hats that had marked Mexican political campaigns since time immemorial. Liberación Plaza was big. If you blindfolded a few dozen people and set them to wander, it would be years before any of them bumped into each other. There were also a couple of vita camera crews, and the reporters leaning against their lokes. Add to that the fact that the area around Liberación Plaza looks depressing at any time, FN9 and the slow, phlegmatic campesino public image gave way to the way the Candidate was before he became a candidate, back to his old identity as a Captain in the 105th Airmobile Infantry Battalion: "What the fuck is this?" hollered the Captain-cum-Candidate as the bus pulled into the plaza. "Chewy, I am not getting out of this vehicle until somebody finds out what's going on." FN10 Chewy, looking all of twelve-years-old, got on the inalámbrico. The campaign used military-issue inalámbricos to coordinate. FN11 "Where are you, Miguel?" Miguel was the point man sent over to get the event going. "Over here, by the Cathedral. I can see you guys. I'm coming over." The Candidate watched Miguel Ibarra jog across the plaza, dodging windswept debris. Most of which seemed to be discarded campaign propaganda. "Chewy, you talk to him," said the Candidate. Ninety percent of maturity was knowing when you were going to be immature, and avoiding the situation. Since the Candidate was angry, better have Chewy do the talking. Chewy leaned out the door of the carreta and asked Ibarra, "What happened? Where is the crowd?" Ibarra managed to jog and shrug simultaneously. "Ni idea. Somebody screwed us. We thought the Guadalajara people were on top of it, but they kicked it over to the party organization in Zapopan and Minerva. There's a big rivalry between the western burbs and the central city, sabes, and they want us to look bad. No mamo, this is deliberate. Somebody wants the Governor to look bad." Ibarra was a tall man, lanky, with a nose that had been smashed in by a cricket bat. But honestly smashed in, during a cricket game. Unfortunately for his future in politics, Miguel Ibarra was also an upstanding and honest young man. He looked incredibly embarrassed. Chewy pulled himself back into the carreta and looked back at the Candidate. "Not good," said the Candidate. "Somebody kicked the duck," said Chewy. FN12 The Candidate's chest heaved, but even if it was hard, he hadn't gotten this far in the viper's nest that was politics in Mercator's Mexico by letting his temper control him. "Uhh-hhhuuuuh. Ask him what he suggests." Chewy leaned back out the door. "What do you suggest?" Miguel shrugged again. "No sé." Chewy pulled himself back in. "He doesn't know." "Haaah-baaaaaaah." The country spirit coming through. "Ask him what Rickover thinks. And don't let him tell you that he hasn't told Rickover." Leaning back out. "What does Rickover want?" Another shrug. Ibarra was far too embarrassed by the situation to try pretending that the Governor didn't know what was happening. "Uh, well, to go ahead with the speech, of course." Chewy turned down one side of his mouth. "Por favor." The accent gave him away immediately as a Mexicano from Chiapas. FN13 Another shrug. "Pues, the Governor himself will be here shortly, and the press is here, the vita cameras are here, and we've issued the releases. It would be, uh, bad form to cancel now, right?" Chewy leaned back in. "He say the Governor wants the show to go on." "Fuuuuuh-guuuuuuuuh! Screw that." The Candidate thought for second. "You know what this is about. The mapmaker is laying a course." It was code, but Chewy knew what it meant. "You think?" "That's right." The Candidate was radiating that weird body language he sometimes did, when you weren't sure if he was going to bust a gut laughing or a window punching. Not for the first time, Chewy wondered if there was something about politics that drove people crazy, or if it was that crazy people were drawn to politics. FN14 Moctezuma's nose certainly looked like the Candidate had used it enough to try to hurt other people's fists. FN15 Or maybe it was cricket games. "And we all must follow that course." The Candidate pointed out the window. "Nyuuuh-zhuuuuuh. See that abandoned storefront? Where those two guarruas are standing next to the reporters?" Two uniformed guards stood out front, as immobile as the planters with the dead trees scattered around Liberación Plaza. An abandoned "Moctezuma for Mexico" flyer blew up against the legs of one guard. He looked down a fraction of a second too late, like a badly-constructed animato. His expression looked painted on. FN16 The reporters just looked bored. "That's where the Governor is. He doesn't want me to go ahead with the speech. He wants me to storm out of here. Then the press will report his speech, in the most glowing terms, of course, filled with all the things he wants from Mercator and thinks he can get from me." The Candidate paused for a moment. "Of course, if I do give the speech, that's fine for him too. It isn't what the Mapmaker wants, but it will do. I'll look silly, and the whistlestop will be an abortion." FN17 He paused again. "Haaaaaba-dabba. I wish Osterman were here. But he's not. What time is it, Chewy?" "Ten para two, Governor." FN18 The Candidate rubbed his face, then yelped. "Yow! I wish I could grow a damned beard in this job." FN19 Chewy looked at him quizzically. "Never mind," said the Candidate. "There's a risk here, you know. If the campaign is too much of a fiasco, we could run a repeat of 1965." "So what should we do, Governor?" "Ten minutes para two, you say? People will be getting out of lunch about now. Secretaries, people at the government offices, hangers on. The plaza may be pretty dead, but I'd bet that if I walked off that way," he pointed down Hospicio Street, towards the office towers, "I couldn't help but run into a chunk of the good people of this town. And then if someone should just accidently wander off that way," he pointed towards the Cathedral, but meant the state government buildings around Jackson Plaza and Constitution Street on the other side, "the same would happen." FN20 "Riiiiight. Right!" Chewy was a bright boy. A college kid, a Mexicano from the Costa Dorada who could sometimes act more Anglo than any Anglo had acted in a century, but he was a bright boy. "I got you, Governor." FN21 "We won't get vitatime, but that's fine. The other parties are going to get even less. I'm no good on the vita anyway. And the story will get around, just like it has everywhere else. It's been too long since this country's seen an election that wasn't run on the vita." Something crossed his face for a second, and Moctezuma muttered, almost inaudibly, "It's been too long since this country's seen a real election." Then he looked up, cracked his knuckles, rubbed his razor-short grey hair, and smiled. "Time to meet the people." FN22 "Right. Uh, you do realize that we need to be back in Mexico City by eight o'clock to meet with that Contreras fellow?" "That's why God invented airmobiles. Vaminous, son." FN23 ---- Forward to FAN #38: Scion. Forward to 19 September 1971 (USM Politics): A Meeting of the Minds. Return to For All Nails. Category: USM politics